When confronted with a disastrous and undeniable fact or action, literary personalities often react with unconventional measures. Catastrophes shine a light on human nature as they broach taboo subjects such as murder and rape. Characters in “Hamlet” and “The Bluest Eye” provide readers insight into the human response to harsh truths. By analyzing how Hamlet reacts to his father’s murder and Claudia and Frieda respond to the rape of their friend, Pecola, the reader can understand the consequences of these reactions.
In “Hamlet”, after encountering the ghost of his late father, King Hamlet, Prince Hamlet vows to seek revenge on Claudius, the man who usurped the throne and married his mother. Hamlet is overwhelmed by hatred and anger, feelings which cloud his judgment and eventually drive him toward madness. In the face of his uncle’s corruption, he reacts with malevolent intentions, plotting the murder of Claudius. His resolve remains unbroken even after mistakenly killing Polonius, the father of his beloved Ophelia. From the outset, Hamlet navigates his father’s murder with primal instincts and emotions of vengeance and loathing. This obsession exemplifies the impact of revenge and hatred on his psyche.
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Prince Hamlet’s actions expose the dark underbelly of humanity that has given rise to wars and suffering. If one party is wounded by another, it retaliates, striving to inflict an equal or greater injury. Hamlet’s emotions steer and blind him, fuelling his wrath until his demise. Conversely, on hearing about Pecola’s rape, Claudia and Frieda wish to support their friend and pray for her unborn child’s safety. “We’ll bury the money over by her house so we can’t go back and dig it up, and we’ll plant the seeds out back of our own house so we can watch over them. When they sprout, we’ll know everything is alright” (Morrison 192). Claudia and Frieda act selflessly, unlike their neighbours, and maintain a positive outlook. They hope for the best.
It would have been easy for them to disregard Pecola and mock her plight, just like their neighbours. Claudia seems to grasp the wider impact of Pecola’s situation on their community. “All of our waste, which we dumped on her, and which she absorbed…We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness…Her poverty kept us generous” (Morrison 205). Claudia and Frieda’s behavior portrays a gentler side of humanity, one that alleviates the suffering of the less fortunate. Claudia and Frieda respond with warmth and kindness, dedicating their money to purchase a bicycle and praying for Pecola’s child. After examining both books, readers are presented with two potential responses to a grim reality: respond with hatred or with love.
Regardless of the initial reactions of these characters, they inevitably lead to unforeseen outcomes, resulting in catastrophe for those involved. Prince Hamlet, in carrying out his vengeance, dies, leaving the throne of Denmark without any remaining royal members. Because Claudius, Hamlet, and Gertrude are all dead, Prince Fortinbras easily seizes power over the kingdom. Even Ophelia, Hamlet’s love, takes her life after Hamlet kills her father. At the cost of both the kingdom and his love, Hamlet fulfills his father’s wishes. There was never a happy ending for Prince Hamlet, only the opportunity to avenge his father’s death and restore honor to the Danish throne. He brings calamity to all those around him, his judgment obscured by his drive to kill Claudius and assuage his rage. He fought “fire with fire,” convinced that death was the only resolution for both Claudius and himself. Hamlet’s apparent madness was the harbinger of the impending tragedy.
In a parallel tragedy, Pecola descends into madness, spending “her days, her tendril, her sap-green days, walking up and down, her head jerking to the beat of a drummer so distant only she could hear” (Morrison 204). Claudia and Frieda’s initial actions of planting marigold seeds and praying for the best amount to nothing. Regardless of what Claudia and Frieda did, Pecola would have still lost her sanity and her child. The community would have continued using Pecola as a scapegoat to bolster their own self-esteem. Pecola never has a happy ending – only the illusion that she has blue eyes and is beautiful. Both novels underscore the fact that intentions matter not when the situation is so extreme; catastrophes are inevitable when faced with such harsh realities. There is neither a happy nor a just ending when evil is the driving force behind either the cause or the resolution of the unjust reality.
While Hamlet’s reaction to his father’s murder and Claudia and Frieda’s response to their friend’s violation differ greatly, both unintentionally lead to failure. Hamlet avenges his father at the cost of his kingdom and his life. Claudia and Frieda ultimately waste their marigold seeds, rendered helpless as Pecola loses her sanity and her father dies. However, it should be noted that Hamlet’s intentions are malevolent. He knowingly gambles with the kingdom and his lineage for ‘setting things right’ in his perspective. His obsession drives him to madness. Conversely, Claudia and Frieda harbor righteous intentions in planting their marigold seeds and hoping for the best for Pecola. Yet, both novels culminate tragically for all parties, despite the characters’ efforts to stave off the downfall of those around them. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
An Analysis Of The Topic Of The Concept Of Responsibility And The Bluest Eye And Hamlet
Throughout this course, the concept of duty has been prevalent in the novels and plays we have read. I have come to observe that in The Bluest Eye and Hamlet, the characters rely on their responsibilities or the notion of duty to make their decisions. In these cases, the characters define their own duties, frequently altering their understanding of duty to modify decisions based on the situation. The Bluest Eye and Hamlet have shown me that all characters have ideologies from which they derive their sense of duty. In The Bluest Eye, Cholly is afraid of taking responsibility for his life and child, having been abandoned and abused frequently in his life. However, he makes numerous attempts throughout his life to mend his ways. Similarly, in Hamlet, Hamlet believes he has a duty to his father and to the kingdom, which prevents him from impulsively killing Claudius.
Indeed, many works of literature show how characters’ ideologies and sense of duty influence their actions and decisions. However, The Bluest Eye presents a unique situation in the case of one of its main antagonists, Cholly. His parents neglect their duty towards him, leading to him being abandoned as a child and left in the care of his great aunt, who dies when he becomes a teenager. This forces Cholly to take more responsibility for his life and make his own decisions. However, his first sexual experience proves traumatic due to racial prejudice when two white men force him to continue while they watch. From events like these, Cholly starts questioning his own identity, driving him to look for his father.
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However, when Cholly finds his father, the latter fails to recognize him or take responsibility for his past actions. Such dismissal leaves Cholly feeling entrapped in a world that has persistently rejected and disregarded him. When he marries Pauline, he shows some signs of responsibility; however, his neglect for Pecola suggests the contrary. It may be that Cholly fears assuming responsibility for his family, as his own parents never took responsibility for him. Yet, raping Pecola and giving her the “love” he felt she deserved might have been Cholly’s attempt at assuming responsibility for his child. Cholly never learned how to interact with others, let alone his own kin. As such, Cholly attempts numerous times to adopt a sense of duty that no one else ever showed him. Due to constant abandonment, whether intentional or inadvertent, Cholly is left questioning any sense of responsibility he should possess.
Although some pieces of literature may offer complicated circumstances from which characters derive their sense of obligation, others present conflicting situations. In Hamlet, the protagonist has obligations to both his father and his kingdom. Initially, Hamlet prioritizes his loyalty and service to the kingdom over any thoughts of revenge. Even though Hamlet suspects “foul” play in his father’s murder and presumes that Claudius is involved, he aligns with Claudius’ rule, as his kingdom should come before his personal feelings. Hamlet wants to stabilize the kingdom after his father’s death, ensuring that Prince Fortinbras of Norway does not target Denmark, viewing weakness as potential for invasion.
However, as Hamlet’s suspicions toward Claudius’ role in his father’s death grow, he seemingly descends into madness. Essentially, he is torn between his loyalty to his father and his commitment to the kingdom. If Hamlet avenges his father and kills Claudius, the kingdom becomes more vulnerable, propelling an attack from Norway that Denmark probably cannot fend off. Conversely, if Hamlet refrains from taking any action against Claudius, Claudius would evade punishment, but the kingdom would retain its stability. Ultimately, Hamlet chooses his duty to his father, embarking on a path of bloodshed that decimates the entire royal family and leaves the kingdom at Prince Fortinbras’ mercy. Hamlet was faced with the predicament of choosing between two contrasting obligations that had profound ramifications on an entire nation.
The Bluest Eye and Hamlet have taught me that characters base their decisions and actions on a sense of duty stemming from their ideologies. This feeling often largely propels the plot, shaping the unfolding events of the story. Importantly, the sense of obligations characterizes the personalities. In The Bluest Eye, Cholly bases his notion of duty on his past experiences, apprehensive about assuming a more effective role in his daughter’s life because he lacks the necessary social connections. His attempts at adopting responsibility prove unsuccessful, thereby deterring him from improving and transforming himself. In Hamlet, the protagonist is torn between two obligations: one to his father and another to his kingdom. His ultimate decision to avenge his father leads to the entire royal family’s demise and the kingdom’s downfall. These literary works have shown me that a character’s sense of duty is what defines them, creating the sequence of events in the storyline.
